Trauma patients and families - hello! My trauma research interests focus on understanding the outcomes of patients who were admitted to critical care (sometimes called intensive care) for management of their injuries. Its a very intense period of post-injury care and can have a major impact on recovery after trauma.

If patients spent long periods of time in critical care because of complex treatment or complications, how does this impact on their longer term recovery after injury? Thoughts? experiences that may be helpful for others?

My personal recovery has taken quite a long time from being admitted into Critical Care to being discharged. Following my car collision, I was placed in an induced coma lasting 6 weeks while many of the numerous injuries were began to be dealt with operationally. Those initial weeks (I am told) were spent back and forth to the operating theatre for many hours surgery at a time on many different injuries sustained.

For me, those 6 weeks loosely translated into almost 6 years before I was able to fully return to some semblance of normality; all be it back to 70% health but that is the best I can now expect. That's not to say the time rehabilitating was a direct consequence of my stay in Critical Care, more from my multitude of injuries (multiple internal organ damage and orthopaedic / nerve trauma) but that the time taken to fully regain as best health as I could is somewhat proportional according to a latest piece of research.